Raíces: Palacio Real (Royal Palace)

This weekend, I decided to go out and pay an inexpensive (€6 reduced student fee) visit to Spain’s Royal Palace. Although it is scarcely ever used for more than tours and public visits in modern times, it has a lot of history in Madrid and Spain. Coming from the United States, thinking of kings and queens sounds so strange to me. The U.S. has obviously never had a royal family in its history, except before the Revolutionary War when the King of England had control of the American colonies, so the unfamiliarity that I had about it fed into my curiosity. The Spanish Royal Family is more involved with being a symbol of power and wealth in the country than being involved with politics. Nonetheless, the Palacio Real was definitely worth the visit. Let’s just say I wouldn’t mind doing my homestay there with the king and queen.

This palace was unlike anything I’d ever seen. We weren’t allowed to visit anywhere near even half of the rooms inside, but the rooms that I was able to explore really left me impressed. I got a glimpse of what royalty looks like. In every single room, there were some of the most beautiful paintings I had ever seen. They even rivaled some of the ones I had seen at El Prado. It was amazing. There was at least one painting in every room and on almost every ceiling. The paintings were very exquisite and well-preserved, even though some dated as far back as the 16th century. The security guards were extremely strict about taking pictures of any of the rooms, even more so than the guards at El Prado, so I couldn’t get any pictures of the artwork in the palace’s rooms or of any of the luxurious furniture.

There was an art exhibition within the palace at the time that I went and I was allowed to take pictures there, so I included some pictures of the artwork here in the post. They weren’t as impressive as the ones in the rooms, to be honest, but they were still interesting. Enjoy the pictures!

Catedral de la Almudena, the most important church in all of Madrid, right in front of the Royal Palace